'Food, Inc.' review

Joel Salatin (Credit: Magnolia)

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Just what exactly is in our food, and how is it made? The answer, at least according to this revealing documentary, is more nauseating than a bout with stomach flu. Pulling together interviews with food authorities, farmers and advocates, the film investigates how widespread demand for cheap and fast food has drastically altered our food production, resulting in a virtual monopoly among manufacturers and leading to damaging effects on our health, our livestock and the environment.

The buzz: The film couldn't be more prescient, arriving at a time when we've seen three E. coli outbreaks in the last four years and a salmonella outbreak last fall that led to a massive peanut-butter recall. All this, amid escalating public concern over epidemics of childhood obesity and adult-onset diabetes.

The verdict: It's enough to make you wanna go vegan. The film is relentless in its crusade to expose the ills of our food-production system, and does a pretty damn good job. Call it the "Super Size Me" effect—except instead of McDonald's, the targets are behemoths like Tyson, Perdue and Smithfield. "Food, Inc." demystifies the pastoral image of farming—no white picket fences here—and exposes food production as a cruel, mechanized hell hole in which illegal immigrants are exploited, food safety is compromised, and genetically altered chicken are fattened up so fast, they can't even stand up. The film's militant, rat-a-rat message gets a bit heavy-handed at times, and its bucolic images of do-gooder farmers sometimes border on disingenuous (Lookee! They're eating a farm-fresh meal in the field! On a red-checkered tablecloth!). But any film that makes you wonder why a can of soda is cheaper than bottled water deserves your rapt attention.

Did you know? According to the film, in 1972 the FDA conducted 50,000 food-safety inspections. By 2006, that had dwindled to just 9,000.

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